


Cataplexy

by DiscordantWords



Series: Post-Episode Vignettes [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, pilot, post-episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 02:19:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3673866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiscordantWords/pseuds/DiscordantWords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You almost looked yourself sometimes, there in the woods."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cataplexy

He opened his eyes in a bed, looked up at a bare white ceiling, cobwebs and faint strands of dust clinging in the corners. The window was open and the dust danced in the gentle breeze. 

It took him a moment to realize that he was awake, that he could move, and he did so in a rush, sitting up and shucking off of the blankets. His heart thudded in his chest. He lifted one hand and then the other, clenched his fist, looked at his fingers. 

Across the room, in the second bed, his father mumbled something in his sleep, turned over, began to snore. 

Billy stood up, wiggled his toes on old motel carpet. He had been marveling at mundane sensations for a week now, the scrape of cloth against his skin, the weak spray of shower water against his face, the wind in his hair. The weather in Washington D.C. is cool but carries a hint of spring, and he has found himself turning his face up towards the sun at every available opportunity. 

They are growing bored with him, and he is glad for that. He wants to go home. Soon they will run out of ways to ask him whether or not he murdered his friends, they will run out of doctors willing to diagnose him, quacks willing to hypnotize him, will run out of needles to poke him with and machines to run him through. 

He stretched, moved to the window, looked out at the half-empty parking lot. One of the streetlights was failing and flickering. The light made him think of bad things and he turned away. 

There had been flashing lights, that night in the woods. He'd opened his eyes and found himself flat on his back in a carpet of pine needles, his head throbbing. He'd sat up and touched the bridge of his nose, wondered briefly how much he'd had to drink. 

Peggy had been on the ground beside him. He'd noticed her first. All around him, his friends had stumbled and staggered to their feet. His arms had felt cold, damp. Peggy was wearing his varsity jacket. 

She'd opened her eyes and said to him in a fuzzy dream-slurred voice that was somehow not her own, "Don't be afraid." 

He'd asked her about that, later, but she'd given him a nervous half smile and shook her head. By then, he hadn't really needed her answer. The voice in his head, the one that came with the headaches, the one that seemed to vibrate between his eyes, had made itself known. 

He went into the bathroom, turned on the water, held his fingers under the faucet, looked at clean scrubbed fingernails and dingy tile. 

When he came back out, his father was sitting up, rubbing his stubbled face in dim lamplight. He looked at Billy, said nothing.

"I was just," Billy started, and then fell silent. He had no explanation. 

"Yeah," his father said, and stood up. His joints creaked. 

"I can't sleep," Billy said. 

His father paused in the doorway to the bathroom. "No, I guess you can't." He flicked on the light, shut the door. 

He'd held Peggy's hand in the car and told her it was for the best. She had flinched away from him, had screamed when she saw the headlights bearing down on them. His head had throbbed out a warning, his nose had bled; he remembered that. The voice that had taken up residence in his brain seemed to know what he was planning to do and objected in the only way it could. He'd held his course, eyes wide open, met the semi truck head on. Broken glass had kissed his face. 

He hadn't expected to wake up. 

He'd thought he was smarter than them. He'd thought he could escape. 

He'd been wrong. 

Consciousness had bled back to him, his eyes had drifted open in a bed, had looked up at a bare white ceiling. There had been voices all around, but he could not lift his head. A nurse attached an IV to his arm. Someone turned on a television.

"We're not done with you yet," the voice in his head had said, and what had frightened him the most was how even, how matter-of-fact that voice was. There was no triumph. 

His father had aged before his unblinking, half-mast eyes, his stony face gaining a decade in less than four years. He'd visited twice a week on his way home from the station, still wearing his uniform. He never spoke, just sat bedside and stared. 

"Come on," his father said, emerging from the bathroom. He had shaved, was wiping his face with a limp white towel. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee." 

*

Billy sat across a gleaming table and answered the same questions he'd answered the day before. He touched the bridge of his nose, the place feeling curiously empty, hollow. 

He watched the men in the room exchanging glances, increasingly frustrated looks. They wanted him to slip up, wanted him to tell them something, anything, that they could use. 

"I think we're done here," one of them said finally, sitting back in his chair. 

He blinked at them, a row of suspicious faces. Behind them, not sitting down, paced the younger agent, Mulder, the man who had flown with them from Oregon. He had an intense look about him, seemed to vibrate with energy, as though he had to work very hard to hold back from speaking. 

He also looked utterly and completely convinced, in sharp contrast to the men doing most of the talking. 

"I told Peggy to run," Billy wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut. He had, though. The thing in his head had talked to him, controlled his limbs when it needed him, left him dormant and unplugged when it did not. He'd been a silent passenger, along for the ride as his body rounded up his former friends one by one, first for tests and then for extermination. But he had jerked to awareness that night in the road, dragging her along behind him, and he'd looked down at her hazy eyes-- she'd never been quite the same after their wreck-- and he'd screamed "RUN" and she had, somehow, with halting clumsy steps. She had run. 

It hadn't been enough to save her. 

Still, he thought, it might have been the beginning of the end. _They_ hadn't taken her. Their hold was weakening. They-- 

"Son," one of the agents had put his hand on Billy's shoulder. His palm was warm and slightly damp. "You're free to go." 

He stood up, took his jacket, made his way for the door. 

His father was waiting in the lobby, sitting on a wooden bench with a newspaper folded in his lap. He stood when he saw them coming, a little too quickly, the paper spilling to the floor. 

"They said I'm free to go," Billy said.

"Come on," his father said. "Let's get home and put this whole mess behind us." 

"Billy," someone called, and he turned around.

Agent Mulder was trotting towards them. His tie had blown over his shoulder.

"I think he's answered enough questions," his father said. 

"He should have an opportunity to tell his story." 

"What, and see it splashed on the cover of every lurid grocery store tabloid? I think our family's been through enough." 

"Dr. Werber--" 

"I don't give a damn what that quack thinks. Or you. My son's been cleared of any wrongdoing, and I'm taking him home." 

Billy stood nervously next to his father, tongue-tied and feeling like a small child. He fought off the urge to bite his nails. 

Mulder gave them both an appraising look. "You knew," he said softly. "You knew the whole time." 

"We have a plane to catch," his father said, taking Billy's arm in a rough grasp. "And I don't have time for any more of your nonsense." 

Billy found himself being ushered into the gray spring morning, guided into the passenger seat of their rental car.

"It will happen again," Mulder called, and Billy felt goosebumps rise on his arms. He turned up the heat in the car. 

His father did not look in his direction as they eased into traffic. 

"Is my room still the same?" Billy asked finally, when the silence in the car had become too thick for him to bear. 

His father glanced towards him, frowning. "What?" 

"My room. At the house. Is it still... mine?"

"Of course." 

"Okay." 

Billy chewed his fingernail and watched the scenery drift by. 

"Dad?" he asked, after a long moment. 

His father grunted, did not take his eyes from the road. 

"Did you?"

"Did I what?"

"Did you know?"

"Did I know that aliens were talking to you through a piece of metal in your head? Making you do things?"

"Yes." Billy sighed. "I guess." 

"No." 

"Okay." 

His father merged into the left lane, picked up speed as they passed a truck. It had begun to drizzle. 

"I didn't know that," his father said, and his voice was thick.

Billy glanced over, surprised. 

"I knew you were walking. Sometimes. At night. I followed you."

"Then you saw what they made me do." 

"I saw my son, who everyone told me would never get out of that goddamn hospital bed again, up and walking around." 

"The FBI said that evidence had been tampered with. That the bodies--" 

"Dr. Nemman and I agreed it was for the best." 

Billy fell silent. 

"I thought there was a chance you might snap out of it. If they tied you down or locked you up somewhere, you might never move again." His father laughed, and it was a harsh, ugly sound. "You almost looked yourself sometimes, there in the woods."

Billy leaned forward, hands on his knees, staring straight ahead as the highway rushed up to meet them. The blood roared in his ears. 

"They were my friends." 

"And you are my son." 

Billy nodded slowly, settled back into his seat, pretended not to notice as his father swiped the back of his hand against his eyes. The gray skies and wet weather already felt like home.


End file.
